are termed in the western world) determine its fall in such a direction as may produce the effect of its bearing down by its prodigious weight all those trees which had been previously weakened for the purpose.  By this much time and labour are saved, and, the object being to destroy and not to save the timber, the rending or otherwise spoiling the stems is of no moment.  I could never behold this devastation without a strong sentiment of regret.  Perhaps the prejudices of a classical education taught me to respect those aged trees as the habitation or material frame of an order of sylvan deities, who were now deprived of existence by the sacrilegious hand of a rude, undistinguishing savage.  But without having recourse to superstition it is not difficult to account for such feelings on the sight of a venerable wood, old, to appearance, as the soil it stood on, and beautiful beyond what pencil can describe, annihilated for the temporary use of the space it occupied.  It seemed a violation of nature in the too arbitrary exercise of power.  The timber, from its abundance, the smallness of consumption, and its distance in most cases from the banks of navigable rivers, by which means alone it could be transported to any distance, is of no value; and trees whose bulk, height, straightness of stem, and extent of limbs excite the admiration of a traveller, perish indiscriminately.  Some of the branches are lopped off, and when these, together with the underwood, are become sufficiently arid, they are set fire to, and the country, for the space of a month or two, is in a general blaze and smoke, until the whole is consumed and the ground effectually cleared.  The expiring wood, beneficent to its ungrateful destroyer, fertilises for his use by its ashes and their salts the earth which it so long adorned.

Unseasonable wet weather at this period, which sometimes happens, and especially when the business is deferred till the close of the dry or south-east monsoon, whose termination is at best irregular, produces much inconvenience by the delay of burning till the vegetation has had time to renew itself; in which case the spot is commonly abandoned, or, if partially burned, it is not without considerable toil that it can be afterwards prepared for sowing.  On such occasions there are imposters ready to make a profit of the credulity of the husbandman who, like all others whose employments expose them to risks, are prone to superstition, by pretending to a power of causing or retarding rain.  One of these will receive, at the time of burning the ladangs, a dollar or more from each family in the neighbourhood, under the pretence of ensuring favourable weather for their undertaking.  To accomplish this purpose he abstains, or pretends to abstain, for many days and nights from food and sleep, and performs various trifling ceremonies; continuing all the time in the open air.  If he espies a cloud gathering he immediately begins to smoke tobacco with great vehemence, walking